Kim Howells is unlikely to be high fiving this morning with the bros at the Department of Culture. The Brits award nominations make grim reading for the minister who last week laid the blame for gang violence at the door of hip-hop's "hateful lyrics".
The list is thick with rappers and Dr Howells' particular bêtes noires, those "idiots" from So Solid Crew - as he put it - are nominated twice.
Although the culture minister may not be best pleased, fans of grassroots music can take some heart from a contest which has often been criticised for being nothing more than a cheerleader for commercial product. For once the Brits have partly turned their backs on boy bands and manufactured television sensations to champion music from the street.
Ms Dynamite and the white Brummie rapper The Streets, known to his mum as Mike Skinner, have both been nominated four times for their respective debut albums. The pair have already gone head-to-head in the more cerebral Mercury awards, with Ms Dynamite - Britain's hottest female act of the moment - coming out top on that occasion. It was the second piece of good news for 21-year-old London-born singer, otherwise known as Niomi McLean-Daley. At the weekend she disclosed she was pregnant.
For Robbie Williams and his record company EMI, who have just paid a record-breaking £80m for his services, the news was not quite so good. The presiding prince of pop could only manage one nomination, for best British male artist.
Still, they can console themselves with the huge profits from Williams's latest number one album, Escapology. He has sold out his three huge outdoor concerts at Knebworth in August - one more than even Oasis achieved at their height.
For 23-year-old Skinner, the adulation must be particularly sweet, having made his album, Original Pirate Material, in the most street credible manner possible - in his bedroom, on stolen equipment with money he earned working part-time at Burger King. He is up against Williams for best British male artist, and is also in the running for best album, best breakthrough act and best urban act.
The reborn pop-soul trio Sugababes - who scored a big hit with Angels with Dirty Faces - are next with three nominations, while So Solid Crew's Romeo, in his incarnation as solo artist, is up against the rest of the 30-strong south London outfit in the urban music category. The Coral, the latest Liverpool guitar band to be compared to the fab four, also have two nominations.
But the most heartwarming nomination of all in an era dominated by pencil-thin manufactured girl and boy bands was that of 80s diva Alison Moyet for best female solo artist. Moyet, 42, whose comeback album of electronic torch songs, Hometime, has gone gold, first burst on to the scene 20 years ago with Vince Clark in Yazoo and their hit Only You.
Of the TV-created popsters, Will Young did best with three nominations, with Liberty X and his old sparring partner Gareth Gates with two apiece. Predictably the two boys are fighting it out for best pop act.
But for all its supposed streetwise credentials this year, some remain unconvinced of the Brits' conversion to music in the raw. Chris Wells, editor of the influential Echoes magazine, who has turned down offers to be a judge in the past, was dismissive.
"The Brits are nonsense," he said. " They are about the music industry slapping itself on the back. The industry know nothing about what is going on on the streets. They are completely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. "
Who's up for what
Best British male solo artist Badly Drawn Boy, Craig David, David Gray, the Streets, Robbie Williams
Best British female solo artist Sophie Ellis Bextor, Ms Dynamite, Beverley Knight, Alison Moyet (left), Beth Orton
Best British album Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head; Ms Dynamite, A Little Deeper; the Coral, The Coral; the Streets, Original Pirate Material; Sugababes, Angels with Dirty Faces
Best British group Blue, Coldplay, Doves, Sugababes, Oasis
Best British single Atomic Kitten, The Tide is High (Get the Feeling); Gareth Gates, Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake); Gareth Gates, Unchained Melody, Liberty X, Just a Little; Will Young, Anything is Possible
Best urban act Beverley Knight, Big Brovaz, Craig David, Daniel Bedingfield, Mis-Teeq, Ms Dynamite, Romeo, Roots Manuva, So Solid Crew, The Streets
Best dance act Chemical Brothers, Groove Armada, Jamiroquai, Kosheen, Sugababes
Best breakthrough artist Liberty X, Ms Dynamite, the Coral, the Streets, Will Young
Best pop act Blue, Enrique Iglesias, Gareth Gates, Pink, Will Young
Best international male solo artist Beck, Eminem, Moby, Nelly, Bruce Springsteen
Best international female solo artist Missy Elliot, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne, Pink
Best international album Eminem, The Eminem Show; Norah Jones, Come Away with Me; Alicia Keys, Songs in A Minor; Pink, Missundaztood; Red Hot Chili Peppers, By the Way
Best international group Foo Fighters, Nickleback, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Royksopp, White Stripes
Best international breakthrough artist Norah Jones, Avril Lavigne, Nickleback, Shakira, White Stripes
Outstanding contribution to music Tom Jones
